Dear Kim Jong-il,

Roses are Red
Plutonium is scary
Get rid of your weapons
And we’ll give you a boat load of oil

Sorry it doesn’t rhyme, but Tony Snow insists he doesn’t ‘do’ poetry and Laura was a bit miffed that I was penning a Valentines Day ditty for someone other than her and she refused to help. And even though FTD suggests saying it “with flowers”, I’ve always found money has worked quite well for Dick (Cheney) and me.

And about that thing I said back in January 2002, during my State of the Union address, about the ‘axis of evil’? I know, I know. I’m so sorry. I don’t know what got into me. Really. I guess I was just angry and feeling a lot of pressure and needed to startle the American people into being a bit more comfortable with the idea of going to war and protecting our nation.

You see, around that time of the address, when we were spending about a billion dollars a month on Afghanistan (which seems like chump change now), I was calling for the largest increase in defense spending in two decades and I had to convince the nation (and the world) that while while the price of freedom and security is high, it is never too high.

And to be honest, lumping you in with Iraq and Iran seemed to be the right thing at the time. C’mon we were up to our necks in alligators over in Afghanistan and we were trying to rally the American people to support a little endeavor Dick and I had in mind over in Iraq. Remember how the American public was still reeling from 911? Well, timing is everything and we knew it was important to drum up some fear and loathing in order to gain support. Not that we didn’t have plenty of support already. Dick’s contractor friends over at Halliburton were ready and willing to go in for the long haul but we needed something snappy and threatening and well, that’s when we came up with the ‘axis of evil’.

So here’s the deal. You have 60 days to shut down the Yongbyon nuclear complex and readmit nuclear inspectors and we’ll give you 50,000 tons of fuel oil or financial aid of an equal amount. Then when you disable the nuclear program--including taking inventory of the plutonium stockpile--you’ll qualify for another 950,000 tons of fuel oil or equivalent aid. Just in case the language of love I’m speaking isn’t totally clear, what we are offering here is worth about $300 million. And this is just the beginning.

What’s in it for us you ask? First of all, because we are offering this deal in conjunction with China, South Korea, Japan and Russia it makes us look as though we aren't operating unilaterally. After the bad rap we’ve gotten on the Iraq deal, we (Dick and I) have decided we need to look like we are collaborating.

Secondly, it demonstrates to the world that if it is possible to negotiate with the likes of North Korea (sorry Kim, you do have a reputation), then perhaps the other members of the Evil Axis should be willing to negotiate as well. And if not, then we can point to these “rogue states” and their defiance to comply with our demands as justification to deal with them as we see fit. And I don’t need to tell you, Iran has been very uncooperative and Dick and I have a hunch we may need to teach them a lesson.

Trust me Kim, if it weren’t for all this fuss about low poll ratings, I wouldn’t ‘pay it no never-mind’ but I’m running a democracy over here and I’ve got to make it look as though it matters what the people think. You are so lucky you don’t have to worry about these things.

I don’t know if you read the European papers much but last fall the Guardian conducted a poll on what world leader was the greatest danger to world peace and do you know that I came out ahead of you? Can you believe it? In Britain, 69% of those questioned say they believe US policy has made the world less safe since 2001, with only 7% thinking action in Iraq and Afghanistan has increased global security? And apparently you, Osama Bin Laden and I were considered the three greatest menaces to global peace.

If it were just those wacky Brits, it wouldn’t bother me so much. But apparently the American people, along with Canada and Mexico, seem to agree that the world is more dangerous because of U.S. policy. We’ve been thinking about outlawing polls but Dick said we’d get too much flack so we’re just pretending they are irrelevant.

I tell you all this to say if you’ll accept this bouquet of oil maybe we can get back to where we were--or rather, back to where we’ve never been--and hopefully we can drum up the support we need to go after Iran.

So Happy Valentines day, Kim! Oh, and Dick wanted me to tell you that if you cooperate with us fully, there’s a lot more oil where that came from!

All my love
George

BC Columnist Molly Secours is a Nashville writer/filmmaker/speaker and co host on several radio programs at 88.1 WFSK at Fisk. Her websites are mollysecours.com and myspace.com/mollysecours. Click here to contact Ms. Secours.